When your life is go, go, go for several years, you don’t have time to reflect on everything that’s going on.
Working in journalism is certainly a business where that is true. You’re constantly grinding out for the next issue of the newspaper, interviewing sources in between writing stories, researching for other stories, revising and editing stories you’ve submitted and more. And you’re always against the clock in your effort to get everything done.
During my nine years as a journalist, this was certainly the case. I’d constantly be working on stories and calling sources back and setting up other interviews. Through all of it, I didn’t have time to really reflect on all that I did as a journalist.
Journalists are often said to be the first writers of history, writing history as it happens. And yet there isn’t much time to reflect on it as you continue to pursue other stories.
In November, for National Novel Writing Month, I’m planning on revisiting those nine years and reflecting on many of the stories I covered over the years in my days as a reporter.
This project is currently entitled, though I’m toying with the idea of titling it Headline Goes Here, as I would frequently type that at the beginning of my news stories before I went in to write the story.
This story will begin in the spring of 2008, when I decided to take the intro. to journalism class and the photojournalism class offered at my high school. At the time, I thought both courses would simply be electives that I’d be interested in; I had no clue they would lead to my first career.
The first part of the book will cover my four years in high school, from taking those intro courses to writing for The Trojan Bluestreak newspaper and later getting a scholarship to attend Wichita State University. I do plan on discussing every story I wrote in high school, as they aren’t that numerous and I feel a certain nostalgia for them.
Conducting an interview on Fort Riley for the 2013 Flint Hills Media Project.
In part two, I will chronicle my years in college working for both The Sunflower and The Andover American turned Butler County Times Gazette. I’ll reflect on my year as The Sunflower’s editor-in-chief and the nearly 300 stories I covered during my time there. I won’t write about every story, but I’ll definitely talk about some of the more memorable ones.
I’ll also talk about covering stories for The Flint Hills Media Project, including my favorite story I ever wrote as a journalist, published the summer of 2014 on the project’s website and magazine.
Checking over an edition of The Sunflower before sending off the paper to the printer. Fall 2014.
I will not talk about my time working in television news, however. As this is a story about reporting, it wouldn’t fit with the rest of the story, since I was a producer in TV news, not a reporter. In addition, I think I’d spend too much time complaining about that experience, which is not the point of this project.
Since I’m going to be encompassing such a long time, I have a feeling I’m going to need more than just the November contest to write this story. To that end, I plan to start writing during Camp NaNoWriMo in July, and later focus on the bulk of the story in November.
I’m excited to get to revisit my past work and reflect on everything I got to experience as a reporter. Here’s to NaNoWriMo 2021!
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